is that they can be awfully hard to live by.
When our kid was born, I swore that we wouldn't let her watch tv until at least 2. That's the recommendation offered by the American Pediatric Society, and it makes sense to me. But right from the get go, I realized one huge problem with the plan. G and I love tv. We watch it a lot. So suddenly trying to live by a rule that basically had us not turning the tv on while the kid was in the room was total torture. But still, for the most part, we've done pretty well. For the first few months of her life, it didn't matter because she didn't register tv anyway. And then somewhere around four months, when we noticed her fascination with the bright lights, we turned it off in her presence and it stayed off. Fortunately, she has an early bedtime, so once she's out for the night, we get to watch WHATEVER we want.
Until now. Despite the no-tv rule, the one thing that we did do was let the little D watch short videos on our phone now and then. Usually youtube videos of dogs and babies, or random videos that our friends posted on FB. And when she turned a year, a friend gave us a DVD called "Science is Real" that's pretty awesome. It's basically a series of music videos about science-related topics for children, created by They Might Be Giants. It's super cute. D's a bit young to grasp the concepts, but it's catchy, and I figured, what the hell, it's educational. Sure, it was cheating a bit, but those few moments here and there got us through hospital procedures and long plane rides. Because, it's not really cheating if it's for a GOOD CAUSE.
And then, D developed her love for monkeys (well, basically all animals, but she especially loves to say "oooh oooh oooh"). So G thought she might like a few minutes of Curious George here and there. So he found a series of short videos on Netflix and showed her every so often, just a minute or two now and then. Usually when we were in bed on weekend mornings and didn't want to get up that early. Whatever app or video we show her, we always sit and watch with her. Maybe twice, we've handed her our phones when she got a little fussy in the car and let her watch a few minutes of something. And it's never been more than maybe 10 minutes tops.
But you see where this is going, right? This, my friends, is how it all starts. Suddenly, I can't really claim to not let my kid watch TV anymore. Well, I mean, I can, but it wouldn't be entirely accurate. Especially after a month or two ago when I was sick and G was working. I made the huge jump of actually letting her watch a George episode on the big screen, our living room tv. I was miserable, already laying on the couch, and it seemed like not such a bad idea at the time, you know, to cuddle up with my kid and watch this inane monkey thing that I've seen a good dozen times now? But somehow, watching tv on an actual TV (as opposed to our phone or laptop) suddenly seemed like I had slipped into terrible-parent mode. It's like the point of no return or something. For a good week after that, our kid kept trying to turn the tv on and ask for "un-key." It took all our distraction powers combined to resist. Fortunately, she seems to have forgotten about it now.
Oh, of course there was that Elmo and that potty incident, too. We still can't set her on the dang toilet without her asking for Elmo. A few months ago, we took D to my brother's and were shocked when she pointed to their tv and said proudly "tee-vee". How did she even what it was? Or who Elmo was for that matter. Now, we can no longer plead ignorance.
And finally, this morning happened. We were laying in bed. G was leaving for work. I was kind of half asleep. D was just jumping on our bed and grabbing things off the night stands like she always does. She pulled over the 3 remotes we have sitting on G's side (because come on, y'all know my husband -- it would be too easy to just have ONE remote). And suddenly, she pointed one towards the tv in our bedroom and asked for the damn "un-key."!!! How the f-- does she know?? It's been so long since we've watched tv in there that I don't even know which remote controls it. And I certainly don't know how to watch Netflix back there. But I guess it's not a huge jump to go from one tv to another. Clearly, she's not fooled by the fact that it's in an entirely different part of the house. Go figure.
I'm sad to say that I caved. Because while I was playing around with the remote and trying to grab G before we walked out the door, guess what my kid was doing? Making herself comfortable by dragging a pillow over to the headboard, pulling the covers up, and snugging in with her lovey blankets. Sigh. I'm guessing that many ideals are going to be shattered in the face of such goddamn cuteness. And honestly, those 20 minutes where she snuggled up next to me and pointed out all the things in her video might just have been worth it.
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